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At the beginning of this month, the Government of Canada issued this direction, setting out the requirement for all public servants to be "in the workplace" at least three days per week. To ensure some flexibility, it also specified that it didn't have to be exactly this schedule. But the intent was that public servants would need to spend a minimum of 60% of their regular schedules, in the workplace, whether measured on a weekly or monthly basis.
Immediately, the Public Service Alliance of Canada reacted and said that it would be filing "unfair labor practice" complaints: “We will be using every recourse we have available to fight this mandate,” PSAC national president Chris Aylward said, arguing that the surprise policy update was “anti-worker” and “fundamentally breaks the trust of workers and unions with the Trudeau government.”
Now, I understand that there are a whole host of legal considerations with a mandate like this. If remote work has, for example, become an implied term of these employment relationships, then it might be difficult for any employer to call these people back. Thankfully, I am not a lawyer. And so I don't think this way. It is probably also the case that I'm now in my middle adulthood and have old school views on this topic.
Because in my mind, this is the government saying, "hey everyone who works for us, we'd like you to come into the office at least three days a week so that we can work together as a team, collaborate, and hopefully innovate." And this is employees saying, "no way, that's totally unfair! How dare you demand we come into the office that much?" Like, since when did going into work become such a problem?
At the same time, Canada is suffering from an existential productivity problem. This country has seen no productivity growth in recent years. And if you compare us to other developed countries, we are near the bottom. Even France -- which is stereotypically famous for its relaxed work culture and its ban on after-work emails -- is more productive than were are!
This needs to change or we will remain a deeply troubled country. And like everything, it's going to require work.
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
Back in 2019, Canada's federal budget allocated $300 million toward something known as The Housing Supply Challenge. The overarching objective was, and still is, to reduce the barriers to housing supply and affordability, and the approach has been to find solutions through a series of "challenges". So far, they -- they being the CMHC Housing Supply Team -- have completed four rounds. And right now, they are on round five. This is the challenge:
Increase the adoption of system-level solutions that transform Canada's ability to produce more community and market housing.
This fifth round represents $65 million of the $300 million total budget. Meaning that $65 million will be awarded to groups and solutions that have the potential to accomplish the above. The funding will be distributed in three stages. First to 20 foundational solutions ($1 million per solution), then to 10 next-level solutions ($3 million per solution), and finally to 3 game-changing solutions ($5 million per solution).
If you have a solution (i.e. something that can be executed on), I would encourage you to check out their site. And if you'd like to apply, you have until December 18, 2023.
I installed and setup Health Canada's COVID Alert app this morning.
It's really simple to do that. You don't enter any personal information. You just select which province you're in, agree to let it use your Bluetooth, and give it permission to share the random codes that you collect with its servers (more on this below). The app is then active and working. But to be clear, it doesn't collect your location (it doesn't use GPS or location services). It doesn't collect the places or times that you are next to someone who also has the COVID Alert app. And it doesn't know if you're with someone who was previously diagnosed with COVID-19.
Built on top of the private exposure framework that was collectively developed by Apple and Google, the app works by using Bluetooth to exchange "random codes" between nearby phones that have the app. These are anonymous and random codes that are used to track which phones have been next to which phones for any meaningful period of time. The app also uses Bluetooth signal strength to estimate proximity. So it knows how long your phone has been proximate to someone else's (with the app) and how close they got to each other.
That's pretty much all that happens with the app unless you test positive for COVID-19. At that point, you will be given a one-time key along with your diagnosis. The onus is then on you to anonymously self-report on the app. Once you do that, anyone who was exposed -- i.e. next to your phone in the last 14 days -- will receive an alert on their phone via the app. And since the app doesn't know any names or who anybody is, it's of course all completely anonymous.
It's great to see all of this coming together. The private sector worked to build the underlying framework and now you have government building on top of it to deliver public health tools. I know that some or many of you will be concerned about privacy, but that appears to have been very well thought out. If you haven't already downloaded the app, I would encourage you to check it out. It's available for iOS and Android and can be downloaded over here.
At the beginning of this month, the Government of Canada issued this direction, setting out the requirement for all public servants to be "in the workplace" at least three days per week. To ensure some flexibility, it also specified that it didn't have to be exactly this schedule. But the intent was that public servants would need to spend a minimum of 60% of their regular schedules, in the workplace, whether measured on a weekly or monthly basis.
Immediately, the Public Service Alliance of Canada reacted and said that it would be filing "unfair labor practice" complaints: “We will be using every recourse we have available to fight this mandate,” PSAC national president Chris Aylward said, arguing that the surprise policy update was “anti-worker” and “fundamentally breaks the trust of workers and unions with the Trudeau government.”
Now, I understand that there are a whole host of legal considerations with a mandate like this. If remote work has, for example, become an implied term of these employment relationships, then it might be difficult for any employer to call these people back. Thankfully, I am not a lawyer. And so I don't think this way. It is probably also the case that I'm now in my middle adulthood and have old school views on this topic.
Because in my mind, this is the government saying, "hey everyone who works for us, we'd like you to come into the office at least three days a week so that we can work together as a team, collaborate, and hopefully innovate." And this is employees saying, "no way, that's totally unfair! How dare you demand we come into the office that much?" Like, since when did going into work become such a problem?
At the same time, Canada is suffering from an existential productivity problem. This country has seen no productivity growth in recent years. And if you compare us to other developed countries, we are near the bottom. Even France -- which is stereotypically famous for its relaxed work culture and its ban on after-work emails -- is more productive than were are!
This needs to change or we will remain a deeply troubled country. And like everything, it's going to require work.
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
Back in 2019, Canada's federal budget allocated $300 million toward something known as The Housing Supply Challenge. The overarching objective was, and still is, to reduce the barriers to housing supply and affordability, and the approach has been to find solutions through a series of "challenges". So far, they -- they being the CMHC Housing Supply Team -- have completed four rounds. And right now, they are on round five. This is the challenge:
Increase the adoption of system-level solutions that transform Canada's ability to produce more community and market housing.
This fifth round represents $65 million of the $300 million total budget. Meaning that $65 million will be awarded to groups and solutions that have the potential to accomplish the above. The funding will be distributed in three stages. First to 20 foundational solutions ($1 million per solution), then to 10 next-level solutions ($3 million per solution), and finally to 3 game-changing solutions ($5 million per solution).
If you have a solution (i.e. something that can be executed on), I would encourage you to check out their site. And if you'd like to apply, you have until December 18, 2023.
I installed and setup Health Canada's COVID Alert app this morning.
It's really simple to do that. You don't enter any personal information. You just select which province you're in, agree to let it use your Bluetooth, and give it permission to share the random codes that you collect with its servers (more on this below). The app is then active and working. But to be clear, it doesn't collect your location (it doesn't use GPS or location services). It doesn't collect the places or times that you are next to someone who also has the COVID Alert app. And it doesn't know if you're with someone who was previously diagnosed with COVID-19.
Built on top of the private exposure framework that was collectively developed by Apple and Google, the app works by using Bluetooth to exchange "random codes" between nearby phones that have the app. These are anonymous and random codes that are used to track which phones have been next to which phones for any meaningful period of time. The app also uses Bluetooth signal strength to estimate proximity. So it knows how long your phone has been proximate to someone else's (with the app) and how close they got to each other.
That's pretty much all that happens with the app unless you test positive for COVID-19. At that point, you will be given a one-time key along with your diagnosis. The onus is then on you to anonymously self-report on the app. Once you do that, anyone who was exposed -- i.e. next to your phone in the last 14 days -- will receive an alert on their phone via the app. And since the app doesn't know any names or who anybody is, it's of course all completely anonymous.
It's great to see all of this coming together. The private sector worked to build the underlying framework and now you have government building on top of it to deliver public health tools. I know that some or many of you will be concerned about privacy, but that appears to have been very well thought out. If you haven't already downloaded the app, I would encourage you to check it out. It's available for iOS and Android and can be downloaded over here.
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